Saturday, November 25, 2006

This has been a very up/down/up week. The day after the Guthrie, Thankful's sister called with the news that her only brother, Rene, was in ICU in Chicago, and that it did not look good. We took off for Chicago.

I had felt that perhaps being in ICU again was going to be, to say the least, difficult. It was, but not as I might have expected. Rather because it was hard watching Thankful going through what I'd been through, and being unable to really help. Unable to make things different for her.

In the end, I didn't have to: Rene did it himself, and began to improve on his own. By Thanksgiving night, he was doing well enough that we made plans to come back to Minnesota yesterday. And did, stopping in LaCrosse to eat alligator ( I ordered the crawdad etouffee, but both Bob and Thankful shared their alligator with me. . . ).

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

That's how structural engineer "Bud" Ericksen describes thttp://www.kfai.org/programs/locnews/archtecv.htmhe cantilever bridge on the new Guthrie Theater. The blue-tinted landmark doesn't open until June 2006, but Todd Melby has already ventured out to the edge of the 178-foot cantilever. Listen to his "Building Minnesota" report.

Monday, after getting off the plane, Thankful and I went to the Guthrie, to leave a picture for Joe Dowling. Edwin had toured the Guthrie while he was in Minneapolis had been stunned at the theatre, and left a note for Joe telling him how much he'd love to come back. When I knew I'd be in Minneapolis, I found a wonderful picture that Edwin had taken of his mountain meadow where he and Fezziwig had played during his cancer recovery, had enlarged and framed, and took it to Joe. Who wasn't there, so the same lovely and gracious secretary as had given him the tour, gave us one. And took the picture into her caretaking, with the promise it would have an honored home at the Guthrie.

Then we saw the black box theatre, I told her about the shadow and the ghost light, and she showed us where the cantilever was. We bought black box lunches (apple, brownie, chicken salad sandwiches, and Pepsis) and walked out onto the end to eat lunch.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Hi, kiddles, and good morning! I'm just finishing up packing, etc. for a trip to Baltimore to catch a plane to go play with Thankful for Thankfulgiving! Won't be back here (WV) till a week or so from Monday. Prolly not much blogging. Don't send for Sheriff Chuck!

Saturday, November 11, 2006

I admit to weeping. The letter below could break your heart. It broke what's left of mine. Please, please, in my name and in Edwin's name go here, and send it, then let me know you have.

LETTER TO THE JAPANESE EMBASSY

I was outraged to learn that Japan kills more than 20,000 dolphins and porpoises every year in dolphin drive hunts. Dolphins and whales that are targeted in this hunt include bottlenose dolphins, pilot whales and striped dolphins. Several of the species are considered to be threatened with extinction.

The truth is the impact of these hunts on the marine mammal populations is unknown due to the lack of good population size estimates for the various targeted species. Scientists also don't know the extent of the disruption the massacre causes on the complex social structure of the dolphins or the effect on the ecosystem of removing so many large animals out of a small area.

Moreover, the wholesale prices for dolphin meat have plummeted as fears over pollution levels have turned Japanese consumers against tinned dolphin.

I urge you to do the right thing and end this slaughter. Not only will you be protecting the health of Japanese families, you won't contribute to the disruption of our delicate ocean ecosystems. This tradition – proud or not – has run its course.

Holiday BookshopA long-forgotten favorite, a shiny new bestseller, or a sentimental classic: we'll help you find the perfect personal gift for everyone on your list.http://www.abebooks.com/docs/Holiday/

Friday, November 10, 2006

Edwin Owenspudderiver4/4/2005 10:26:16 PMPoem

Thus is no doubt something of a paraphrase both the words and the"style". I am quoting from memory - lost my copy of e e cummings........................................................................

if i have made

my lady

intricate imperfect various things

chiefly which wrong your eyes

if i have failedto snare the glance too shy

if through my singing

slips

the skillful strangeness ofyour smile

the keen primeval silence of your hair

songs less firm

than your body's whitest song upon my mind

frailer than most deep dreams are frail

then let the world say

his most wise music

stole nothing from death

you only will create

who are so perfectly alive

my shame

lady through whose profound and fragile lips

the sweet small clumsy feet of april came

into the ragged meadow of my soul

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

<>I think i have something out of order up there but I"m not sure what.

I love this poem, it was especially important to me when I was a "mereslip of a thing" !!!

Love always, XOXOXO Edwin

puddleriverEdwin Owens4/4/2005 10:44:39 PMRe:Poem

Edwin, however the original went (and what was on the page feels very cummings to me), that was truly lovely. Thank you so much for sending it to me.

Thursday, November 09, 2006

puddleriverEdwin Owens3/13/2005 3:50:51 PMkeep encouraged

To be nobody-but-yourself -- in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else -- means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~~ e.e. cummings

Edwin Owenspuddleriver3/14/2005 1:22:38 AMRe: keep encouraged

as for expressing

nobody but your self

in words

that means you're going to have to work

just a little bit harder than anyone who isn't a poet can possiblyimagine

Went to town to do some long neglected tasks: pay taxes (so they don't auction off my farm next week), pay car insurance (reinstated upon payment), get another car key (one lost somewhere the last two months), get food (eggs and tuna fish are fine, but after 10 days or so, it gets a little old. . . ), tell some friends, who didn't know (yes, I cried).

Coming home, just before dark, I took the long way, Thorn Creek Road, which winds along the Blackthorn. The river here runs on its slate bottom, and is black itself except for steps, stairs and rapids which produce white. Tonight, for some reason it was especially beautiful. More beautiful than I've ever seen it. The black blacker and shinier; the white of the small rapids brighter and glossier. It was warm and my window was open and it all smelled wonderfully fresh and clean.

Closer to home, and nearly dark. a pair of young deer, still showing faint spots were gamboling in the road, then ran up the hill and raced me for half a mile, just for the sheer joy of it I think.

In all, I am reminded why I picked this place in the beginning. And why the farm was named What Joy.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Thank you so much for the good morning greeting, (such a treat to hear from you first thing in the morning). And, the beautiful "Moth"(?) picture. I encountered a creature like that in Abingdon VA. a few years ago - long story - my God, but they are lovely and fragile.

So, trying to catch up:

1) bad phraseology on my part; I'm not starting my next gig today (that happens Tuesday), I was just excited to be facing the coming week with the prospect of meeting the Gov.; and beginning a new job.

2) Yes, he is totally amazing! a.) intense BLUE eyesb.) he has that "look" about him. He is listening and commenting on your every word - yet promising to meet you somewhere in the future.3.) Smaller of stature than I had thought, but, like Robert F. Kennedy, he's the one I want on my side in a fight.4.) As with John F. Kennedy, one has the experience that what he says in his speeches is a reflection of his own experience and view of life.

Sort of a joke:

I had a job this morning.

Howard was to give a speech to grassroots supporters (DFNYC) in the auditorium of the SEIU union hall. Before the speech Tracey Denton (head of DFNYC) was trying to arrange for people like me, who have worked in the campaigns but never met the man, to, well, meet the man. Tracey asked me to be "on the door" with another fellow so this reception could be kept small and the Gov. would not be mobbed. She said she wanted me to do it, "Because you're so big and intimidating looking". I wore what I think of as my "Lawyer Suit". As the morning wore on and we were waiting for Howard to arrive I realized that I should probably call this my "Cop Suit". No one would talk to me. And no one tried to get past me. Questions were invariably directed to my partner, and when he told them, "No, this is a private reception." They would generally shoot a glance at me and walk away.

If they only knew what a sentimental slob I am. If it had been left up to me I would have said, YES, COME IN! EVERYONE SHOULD MEET HOWARD DEAN! (LOL)

I did get to "hold, and admit" my Congresswoman, "Yes, Ms. Maloney and how nice to see you here!"

I have yet to figure her out, most folk in my district were very excited when she was first elected, she votes "right" but many were expecting greater leadership. Ah well.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

I wonder if I'll notice the day when my first thought on waking isn't: Edwin is dead. Or if it will pass, unmarked, and I'll only notice it later? Trooth is, even as I say it, I don't really believe it for a while. Just lay there and turn it over in my brain, until it's real, and another day begins. Without him.

In the beginning, there was no desire to ever go to sleep. As if if I did, I'd fall into a nightmare from which I'd never get out. Now, it seems more a matter of staying awake long enough so that I actually can sleep. Making myself stay awake.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This play was seen as part of the Tribune-Review's fall Broadway theater trip

NEW YORK -- "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," the late Tennessee Williams' favorite of his many plays, returns to Broadway a muted beauty.

The play is the lair of Big Daddy Pollitt, a character inspired partly by the playwright's father and the one he felt he drew to a finer point than in a Williams work.

Generally regarded now as the second- or third-greatest work in Williams' canon, behind "A Streetcar Named Desire" and possibly "The Glass Menagerie," "Cat" plunges for nearly three riveting hours into themes Williams revisited frequently from different vantages: birth, death and the transience of life; longing and repression; lust and denial; riches and rapaciousness, and the enduring irony of unrequited love.

Much of the new revival's reputation has to do with its fidelity to the playwright's vision. Williams had modified the text of the original 1955 production, mainly the third act, to satisfy director Elia Kazan's feeling that it needed a more positive and hopeful coloration.

The bowdlerized, if impeccably rendered, 1958 film version was more hopeful still, including the suggestive tossing of a pillow in the final shot.

A 1974 Broadway revival restored most of the original pre-Kazan text, retaining only the changes Williams had decided were improvements. The current revival is only a shade off the 1974 text, with a tweak that makes the final exchange more ambiguous.

Anthony Page's production is being performed at Broadway's Music Box Theatre with mixed blessings but sufficient luster to override its shortcomings.

The play is set on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta in the mid-1950s on Big Daddy's 65th birthday.

After five years of battling cancer and clarifying his life perspectives, Big Daddy lives momentarily with the mistaken belief that he's been troubled by nothing more than a spastic colon from which he will soon recover.

The rest of his family knows better, or soon will.

Older, disfavored son Gooper (Michael Mastro) and nakedly avaricious wife Mae (Amy Hohn), more often called Sister Woman, are expecting their sixth child. No one shares their anticipation of another "no-necked monster" like their first five.

The favorite son of Big Daddy and Big Mama is Brick (Jason Patric), a former golden boy football star hobbling on a broken ankle with a crutch that is the play's symbolic centerpiece.

Something is amiss in the marriage of Brick and Margaret (Ashley Judd), or Maggie the Cat. She's nicknamed for the feline shrewishness with which she fences with Mae and Gooper as they try to appropriate Big Daddy's fortune prematurely.

Brick and Maggie haven't shared a bed since before the suicide of his best friend Skipper, a comparably macho and damaged soul whose attraction to Brick she fatally exposed.

Brick has walled himself off physically and emotionally from everyone. The carnally frustrated Maggie tries to melt his reserve while his bulldog of a father plays the suit he shares with Brick, a contempt for "the powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity" and anything that smacks of hypocrisy.

It is ironically Big Daddy's ignorance of his own condition that allows him to restore the order to his life that he had surrendered to others while distracted by health worries.

Judd is a valiant Maggie but only an intermittently persuasive one. Grappling with elocution in a way that calls attention to itself, hers is an agitated Maggie, sniping but disclosing nothing languorous in her yearning for marital satisfaction.

In the part of his rewrite that pleased him, Williams made Maggie more sympathetic. Judd's Maggie seems annoyed, mostly, that her miscalculated interference in the Brick-Skipper relationship has backfired and that it derailed a game plan rather than just a marital relationship.

Patric's Brick is unusually detached, adrift in alcohol, as if he truly were beyond reach and not necessarily worth restoring. He is, though, the embodiment of a rock to whom others naturally gravitate.

I had looked forward especially to seeing Ned Beatty's interpretation of the vulnerable vulgarian Big Daddy, but he missed the performance attended. Taking over with considerable authority was Edwin C. Owens, who normally plays Doctor Baugh.

The imposing Owens, with girth to match his temperament, has lots of bark and plenty of bite, growling with a ferocity that can shake scenery and hoist the whole production to a new level.

In demeanor he's most suggestive of Burl Ives, who did the part in '55 and in the movie, and Pat Hingle, curiously enough the original '55 Gooper. Owens' key revelation of Big Daddy is of a perishable life force.

Nary a laugh from the text is overlooked, especially those generated by Hohn's hyper-ambitious Mae and Mastro's Gooper, who is so helplessly doomed to live in the shadow of a younger, bronzed deity of a brother despite Brick's anger and indifference.

Margo Martindale's portrayal of Ida, better known as Big Mama, is a special asset, an uncommonly sympathetic matriarch given to nervous silliness around her obstreperous husband.

She jangles from an overloaded charm bracelet she hauls on her wrist uneasily, as if it were a cow bell announcing her movements. It suggests noisily, as the item does in life, the sentiments of its wearer.

"Cat" remains one of the theater's sustained dramatic pleasures, encouraging us to sift, like Big Daddy, through lies and evasions, even if at a price. There isn't a character among the six principals who doesn't singe his claws on that hot tin roof.

About Me

Water gathering
most days I wait
through blue and sun
till dusk
or even later
and the rose has faded
to lavender, to gray
some days, the sleet
has started
and the leaves underfoot
are slick with ice
somehow I'm never sorry
and never learn
one night I waited
till the stars were out
dropped the bucket into
sound, only felt the weight
of it filling
and the night full of stars
and the river full of stars
and the bucket full of stars
come morning, the coffee
is also full of stars